Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hola Inma,

The sentence below appears to have the incorrect emphases; it appears as an example of desde que being used in the subjunctive, with something that will happen in the future. That said, I think you could retain the existing emphases as well because if I understand the lesson correctly, the subjunctive would also apply to hasta que.

Mañana, desde que aterrices hasta que llegues al hotel habrán pasado un par de horas.

Saludos. John

Looking at the questions asked by Huw and by Ian - I wondered if it might be worth using an expression like "in the process of …" to distinguish between the two cases. 

e.g. "Los libros estaban siendo colocados en las estanterías" >

> means (more or less?): "the books were in the process of being placed on the shelves"... It really does need some kind of special treatment, because there is not always a directly translatable equivalent in English (although here, we could actually say: "the books were being placed on the shelves"). The above sentence could usefully be compared with 

Los libros fueron colocados en las estanterías

and

Los libros eran colocados en las estanterías

and

Los libros han sido colocados en las estanterías.

and [maybe !]

Los libros habían sido colocados en las estanterías.

Of course, each of those^ alternatives carries a different meaning.

[… What about: "Los libros estuvieron siendo colocados en las estanterías"? !]

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In your example: "The strawberries had been in the process of being collected" is probably a better illustration for my suggestion.